Blasch Precision Ceramics recently announced it has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The agreement is reportedly designed to create a comprehensive modeling and analysis tool that can be used to optimize the performance of the patented Blasch VectorWall™ product.

The VectorWall is an adaptable mixing wall reportedly designed to be placed in a high-temperature reaction furnace environment to modify furnace-wide gas flow fields to improve mixing and, subsequently, reaction furnace performance. The need for a more fundamental understanding of how these improvements are generated is the motivation behind this new cooperation with Rensselaer, through the university’s New York state-funded Center for Future Energy Systems.

The project will begin with the development of various ideal model analyses to establish a directional understanding of the role of the VectorWall in the reactions of interest. Insights gained from these analyses will be integrated into large-scale simulations of VectorWall installations integrating computational fluid dynamics analysis with multiphysics (e.g., heat, mass, flow and kinetic) reactor simulations to quantify performance gains and other process implications.